


in Sicherheit sein

by Zvarrklingreputation



Category: Milo Murphy's Law, Phineas and Ferb
Genre: (mom trying to get her kid to try broccoli voice) come on try it you might like it, Canon Compliant, Coming of Age, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Online Friendship, Slow Burn, Trans Male Character, additional character tags to be added as we go along, and then back to friends and then lovers again (youll see), owca SUCKS
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-13 21:13:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29782161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zvarrklingreputation/pseuds/Zvarrklingreputation
Summary: Carl is a transplant to the Tri-State Area from Chula Vista, sent to live with a mysterious aunt in a suburb of Danville. Elliot is a neurotic yet by-the-book boy who wants to experience the most safe and normal teenage experience possible, despite life circumstances making this not-so-feasible.Ten years later, they are both on the run from the United States government. One remarks to the other that even if he gets sent to jail, he’s glad he got to fall in love with such a handsome redheaded geek along the way.This is the story of everything that happens in between.
Relationships: Elliot Decker/Carl Karl, other incidental relationships
Comments: 1
Kudos: 3





	in Sicherheit sein

The middle schooler who would eventually call themself Carl Karl was on the Wikipedia page for “transgender man” again. It was the burning distress of the onset of puberty that drove this, searching “can you become a boy if you are a girl”. This led them to gender, which also led them to sexuality. The middle schooler didn’t recognize anyone on the Wikipedia list of famous transgender people, but they did recognize that Danny from Love Handel was bisexual, whatever that meant. Eleven is a good age for reading about all the possible sexualities there are, because labeling means almost nothing. The middle schooler with a name they never liked tried on imagining themself with all of the labels, imagined saying “hello, I’m Nitro, and I am bisexual like Danny from Love Handel”. Perhaps they liked girls. They would never know, seeing as they had only had a crush on one person ever, and he was home in Chula Vista and called them Little Orphan Annie because they had red hair and lived in foster care.

Their twin sister, Carla, had never liked anybody, which according to Wikipedia made her “asexual”, a new sexuality for people who didn’t like anyone at all. “I don’t get it,” she’d say, as her twin lamented the meanness of their crush. “Why would anyone do that to themselves?”

“He’s tall and his hair is wavy, and he’s got dimples when he smiles. Can you imagine? I get him to smile and he realizes he’s been in love with me all along?” they would sigh, and doodle “Dax Karl + Kyle Dick” or “Steele Karl + Kyle Dick” on homework packets. Different names every time, because they hadn’t decided yet what name they would choose as a lie to say was their name when asked by new kids at their next placement. Something cool, they hoped.

That night, the night when the middle schooler calmed their nerves of being far away from home with introspective gender questioning, was a cold night for August. Carla, used to living in scorching hot Chula Vista, shivered in the back seat. “Want me to hold your hand to warm you up?” her sibling asked, and she nodded. They were both taken aback at how cold the other one’s hand was. Was their circulation really that poor?

“I’m nervous,” said Carla. “What if Aunt Carly and Uncle Carol are like Dad?”

“They won’t be,” the other middle schooler said, although they weren’t sure they believed themself. This was the Karl side of the family, after all. Their father had always referred to their family as “a bunch of fuckups and unpaid interns”, back when they were second graders.

The cab pulled into a plain, unassuming house in the middle of an extremely average neighborhood. The houses were bigger than anything the twins had ever lived in, but were hardly the three-level McMansions of suburbia. Carla gasped when she first came into the front yard. “A spruce tree! Oh, it’ll look so pretty once it’s winter.”

The other twin blinked as they stepped out and grabbed their suitcase, dragging it across the cracked driveway. They slowed down to make sure Carla could keep pace with them, and took a few seconds to adjust their backpack. _This is it,_ they thought. _Here we are, ready for our new forever home, god willing._ They rung the doorbell and waited. Silence greeted them. A mosquito flew by.

“Carol, you bum, the doorbell rang. I know you’re down there!” called a female voice from somewhere inside the house.

“Can’t you do it? The game’s just starting to get good,” replied a crotchety old man’s voice.

“For Christ’s sake, I have to do everything around here.” There was a sound of footsteps coming down stairs and the shuffle of slippers. The door swung open to reveal a short old woman with cheaply-dyed red hair. “Sorry about Carol, he’s not good for nothing most times. I’m Aunt Carly. You two Charlie’s girls?”

The twins nodded. Carla took charge at first, a rarity for her. “I’m Carla and this is my sister…”

“Carl. My name’s Carl. It’s a nickname. Because I look so much like Carla,” the other twin found themself interrupting. They wanted to use any name at their new home than the one they had been given at birth, and the first name that had popped into their head was Carl. _Why Carl? Why couldn’t it have been a cooler name?_

“No shame in being a girl called Carl. They used to call me Bone-Eater Ronald in middle school.”

“Why?” asked Carla.

“Cuz I looked like a clown and I ate the bones in chicken wings. I had to show that I was tough somehow. You have to try twice as hard to get half as far when you’re a woman of the twentieth century.” Aunt Carly nodded as if her answer made sense. “Let’s get you two inside. The mosquitoes get mighty bitey this time of year. Plus, you two have gotta be exhausted after flying here all the way from… Where was it y’all were from? Casablanca?”

“Chula Vista,” corrected the twin who supposed their new name was Carl. “It’s in California.”

“Right, right. I always get those two mixed up. Like I know in my head that Casablanca is the one in Morocco with the gambling and all that, but Chula Vista doesn’t stick in my brain at all. Yeah, that makes more sense.” Aunt Carly ushered the twins inside.

“This here is my husband, Carol,” Aunt Carly said, gesturing towards the living room. “He’s an unpaid intern at my company. ‘Course, all you Karls are unpaid interns, it seems like. He doesn’t do much, just sits at home and watches baseball while tippity-tapping away on his laptop. Sometimes I try to get him to wash the dishes, but getting him to do anything’s like herding cats.” She sighed. “But it’s okay, because now I’ve got two healthy girls to help around the house. You two know how to program a Roomba?”

“I know a little about programming,” Carl replied. “I was in the lego robots team at school last year. That’s like programming a Roomba, right?”

“I can reboot a computer,” Carla added.

“Great! You know how to gut a fish?” Aunt Carly asked.

Carl and Carla exchanged a look before shaking their heads in unison.

“You’ll learn. There’s nothing to it, once you desensitize yourself to organs and bones and all that good stuff. Can you both keep secrets?”

Carl flinched. Keeping secrets was how they ended up in foster care. They saw Carla blanch before she replied, “Yeah, I guess so.”

“Good. You’ll be fine here. Your bedroom is upstairs on the left, you can’t miss it. It’s the one with bunk beds. You’ll have to decide who gets top bunk, and I expect y’all to do it calmly. No fighting on your first day.”

Carl and Carla nodded, and carried their luggage up to their room to start unpacking. They didn’t bring much, but they each had about ten outfits and a couple beloved stuffed animals apiece, which they went to work arranging in their closet.

“You can have the top bunk,” Carla said as she placed her Bango-Ru atop the bottom bunk’s pillow. “I like living in a cave.”

“Okay,” Carl replied, pulling their hair out of their ponytail. “Should I shower first?”

“Go for it,” Carla replied, and Carl took out a pair of pajamas and toiletries and left for the bathroom.

Carl showered and brushed their teeth, humming “I’m Lindana and I Wanna Have Fun” (it was two minutes exactly and thus the perfect way to keep track of how long to brush teeth). When they finished, they spit, and noticed that there was blood. _I should brush more than once a day,_ Carl thought. _I don’t want to get a bad score at the dentist’s office._

Carl came back into their bedroom, and grabbed a book before climbing up the ladder into bed. “Your turn,” they said, and Carla left. Carl lost themself in the book for the next fifteen minutes, reading about unicorns at a unicorn school learning how to be magic horses. Glittermane had discovered that Sparkledust had been cheating on the Carrot Levitation exam when Carla came back in the room.

“Hey,” Carl said.

“Hi,” Carla replied.

“How was your shower?” Carl asked.

“Good. Why did you say your name was Carl when you introduced yourself to Aunt Carly?”

Carl bit their lip. They didn’t feel ready to come out yet as a specific identity (they had just begun questioning, after all), but they did know that they trusted Carla and wanted to keep them in the loop. “You know how I hate my name? I’m trying a new one on for now. It’s just temporary until I can think of something cooler.”

“Ok,” Carla said, seeming satisfied. She opened up her handheld gaming console and booted up her Marco Bros game.

“And also I’m questioning my gender,” Carl said quickly, heart pounding.

Carla’s head darted up from her handheld gaming console. “Huh?”

“I might not be a girl. Or maybe I am and I’m just confused, but I’m trying out a boy’s name for the time being.” Carl felt like they were going to black out. If Carla wasn’t supportive, they didn’t know what they would do.

“Oh, okay. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to support you. Sisters sticking out for each other, and all that. Wait, no, not sisters… siblings. Siblings sticking out for each other.” Carla adjusted her shirt, embarrassed.

“Thanks, Carla. You rock,” Carl replied, relief washing over them, and they turned off the light.

~

“Hey, what elementary school did you go to?” asked a tall black-haired girl on the bus. It was about a month later, and while Carl had gotten used to their new home, they still weren’t familiar with the landscape of their hometown, a Danville suburb called Swamp City. “I went to Flehman Elementary, how about you two?”

Carl and Carla shared a glance and shrugged. “We’ve been all over,” Carl replied. “We’re from out-of-state. Chula Vista. It’s in California.”

“Wow, that’s so far away! I’ve never left the Midwest. I could never live somewhere like California. It would get too hot for me. By the way, what’s your name?”

“She’s Carla,” Carl said, pointing with their thumb towards their sister. “And I’m Carl.”

The girl’s face lit up. “A girl named Carl? I’m a girl with a boy’s name too! I’m Sal!”

“Sal?” asked Carla.

“Yeah, Sal. It’s short for Sally, but I really like Impractical Jokers so I decided to go by Sal. All I need is three friends to start pranking people with. I think Carla looks like more of a Q if I’m being honest. Carl, you can be Murr.”

“What the heck are you talking about?” asked Carla.

“You’ve never seen Impractical Jokers? It’s only my favorite TV show in the whole entire world? I want to go to New York so I can meet them. I’ll look up clips and show them to you on my phone during lunch if you want.”

Carl was overwhelmed, but nodded their head.

“Cool. Then it’s a date. Metaphorically speaking. I only date boys because I’m straight and I love men.” Sal gave a nervous giggle.

~

And so, because Sal trusted the twins enough to show them reality TV clips on YouTube during lunch and because neither of the twins were socially adept enough to make friends with anyone cooler, an unbreakable camaraderie formed between Carl, Carla, and Sal. It was rough, because even though Sal always had a set of middle school boys hanging off her every action as she played the Ducky Momo theme using only armpit farts, she tended to get the side eye from other girls in the grade.

Sal, Carl, and Carla all joined the middle school volleyball team together, which was fun on one hand because they got to spend time together, but on the other hand it didn’t earn them any favors in the eyes of their teammates, as they seemed to have very little volleyball talent at all.

“So then Mikayla says ‘I heard you use tampons which means you’re a slut in the eyes of the Lord,’, and I say ‘Why would Billy Ray Cyrus care if I use a tampon’ and then Mikayla says I should stop being blasphemous. Which to be fair, I should have stopped being blasphemous, but honestly I don’t get why everyone cares so much. I don’t even know what a tampon looks like in person by the way, because I’m, you know, eleven years old, so I don’t know where she got the idea that I’m using them. Oh fudge nuggets!” Sal ended her rambling early as a volleyball beaned her in the head.

Carl giggled.

“A heads-up would have been nice,” Sal complained.

“Gunderson! Focus!” yelled their history-teacher-turned-coach.

“Can’t I sit on the bench, Coach?” Sal pleaded. “Please please please? I’m gravely injured!”

“The school board says we have to give every girl their playing time, so unfortunately, no you can’t.” The coach narrowed her eyes. “Just play, Sal.”

Carl could feel their stomach drop as the tension filled the air. Sal tapped her chin, as if she was considering what to do. “Okay,” Sal said, putting her arms in prime bumping position.

Carl breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness,” they said, before the whistle blew and it was back to the volleyball grind.

~

That summer, Carl sat alone in their room, drawing in a spiral-ring notebook. They had just learned about furries and wanted to be a furry as well. They decided their fursona would be a red squirrel, and this would be the ref sheet they would use from now on.

Aunt Carly was busy making kidney bean soup downstairs, humming a song about knives. Carl didn’t worry about it too hard. That was just how Aunt Carly was.

Carla burst into the room. “Carl, I have something important to tell you about the soup. It’s a terrible soup.”

Carl wasn’t sure they wanted to know.


End file.
